How did Italian Jews come to re-define themselves as "Italians of Israelite religion"? Challenging the vision of a monolithic ghetto society, Luzzatto argues that in the wake of unification the Jewish world possessed dynamism and social diversity and ended up providing not only a model of a modern ruling class but also a disproportionate number of politicians, lawyers, economists, and scientists who, consciously or not, became champions of a  new secular society.

Image: Mayor of Rome Ernesto Nathan

 

Emancipated, fully integrated, and secular, modern Italian Jews were no longer under the shadow of the Church.
Yet, between 1860 and 1945 the attitudes of two Popes significantly permeated their condition in society and ultimately, their fate.
Using era sources and contemporary criticism, Gadi Luzzatto tries to identify the underlying interpretative and polemical patterns that  go from the Mortara case to the controversy on Pius XII.

Image: Edgardo Mortara